I see young Micah Richards going the same way as so many of our promising youngsters.
Here's how it gone over the years, we find some amazing young talent at City, we nurture it and we let them express themselves, they learn and become successful as individuals and as a group learning team ethics are more important than individual interests. Our youth is famed throughout British football and then what do we do with them....
We introduce them to the first team where by and large our kids show some true promise, even motm performances and in Richards case he even went all the way to the very top achieving international status.
The problem though is that nearly every single one of our kids that make the grade and I'll go as far back as Garry Flitcroft, Paul Moulden and the Steve Lomas's we then throw them in week in week out to the demands on the English Premiership, one of if not the strongest leagues in world football and then we let them sink or swim without so much as throwing them a float.
Michael Johnson for instance should have been given half a dozen games and then rested back to the reserves, keep his feet frimly planted and learn his trade, then re-introduced later for another short run of games and so on. But here at City for some reason we expect him to dominate Premiership games week in week out.
Stephen Ireland was almost burnt out but found great strength of character to say hang on I can do this I can make it. Apart from SWP, Ireland and possibly Paul Lake we've burnt out all of our kids before they've hardly had a chance.